


False God

by martianwahtney



Series: Tony Stark Bingo IV [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Castiel Needs Love (Supernatural), Castiel is So Done (Supernatural), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Timeline What Timeline, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, playing fast and loose with canon, tony/cas being an actual tag gave me life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28024488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martianwahtney/pseuds/martianwahtney
Summary: “So you’re an X-Men,” Tony said, realization dawning on him.“I’m-”“Charles put you up to this? Professor X whatever. He’s always wanted to test me for the X gene,” Tony muttered.The man watched him, head cocked to the side. He looked equal parts confused and bemused.“I’m not an X-Man,”“X-Men,”Tony frowned suddenly.“Then who are you?”“My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of the lord,”Tony stared at him for a moment before a hysterical laugh bubbled out of him. Castiel cocked his head to the side.--Castiel saves Tony Stark from Siberia and helps him heal.
Relationships: Castiel (Supernatural) & Tony Stark, Castiel (Supernatural)/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo IV [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978531
Comments: 23
Kudos: 96
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	False God

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not even joking when i tell u that i have been sitting on this fic since september of 2019 this fucking idea has haunted me for over a year and through at least two rounds of the TSB BUT IT'S DONE I DID IT  
> Card Number: 4011  
> Square Filled: A5- au: supernatural  
> 

When Tony woke he was in a room he didn’t recognize. The grey walls made him think he was still in Russia for a few horrifying seconds before he realized he was lying on a bed, and not in his armor. 

“FRIDAY?” he croaked.

There was no response from his baby girl.  _ Fuck _ . He pushed himself out of bed, his muscles felt sore but there was no physical evidence of his fight with Rogers. No bruises, no cuts, no… nothing.

His armor was sitting in a chair in the corner of his room- or at least what was left of his armor was. It was looking a little worse for wear. 

He stepped out of the room and found himself in a long hallway with many doors. Each door had a number in a unicursal hexagram. Tony turned to look at the door behind him. He was in room 12.

“Hello?” he called tentatively.

He really hoped that HYDRA wasn’t behind this. He didn’t feel like having to deal with them after everything that had happened. 

He slowly made his way down the hallway and somehow ended up in a library. 

There was a man kneeling before a row of shelves, he was surrounded by books and examining one intently. 

“Where am I?” Tony asked.

The man stood. He wore a pair of dark slacks and a white button up shirt, the sleeves of his arms were rolled up. He had dark hair, scruff, and a frankly stunning pair of blue eyes. 

“Are those wings?” Tony asked, getting completely sidetracked at the sight of the dark wings protruding from the man's back. 

“Lebanon, Kansas,” the man said, his voice was like gravel.

Kansas. He was in Kansas. How has he gotten to Kansas? He had just been in Russia.

“And yes,” the man added, wings fluttering softly. 

“These are wings,”

“So you’re an X-Men,” Tony said, realization dawning on him. 

“I’m-”

“Charles put you up to this? Professor X whatever. He’s always wanted to test me for the X gene,” Tony muttered. 

The man watched him, head cocked to the side. He looked equal parts confused and bemused. 

“I’m not an X-Man,”

“X-Men,”

Tony frowned suddenly. 

“Then who are you?”

“My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of the lord,”

Tony stared at him for a moment before a hysterical laugh bubbled out of him. Castiel cocked his head to the side. 

“Right,” Tony agreed sarcastically. 

“Angel of the lord saved me,” he added with a scoff. 

“I heard your prayers, and I came to help,”

Tony just shook his head. There was no way an Angel of the lord found him, the Merchant of Death, the man who destroyed the Avengers, worthy enough to save. That was fucking impossible. This man was clearly delusional and Tony needed to get the fuck back to New York.

“I- I need to fix my suit. Is there a garage in this… bunker?” Tony asked.

Castiel cocked his head to the side.

“Yes,”

It took nearly half an hour for Tony to drag his suit from his room to the garage- which as it turned out was not a workshop of any kind, but an actual garage where a few gorgeous classic cars were kept.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” Tony admitted.

“This is a garage,” Castiel said.

“I can figure something out,” Tony muttered, scrubbing his hand over his hair.

He’d have to try and figure out how to fix the arc reactor first, getting the suit hooked up to electricity wouldn’t mean shit if he couldn’t keep power.

Of course the next issue was that he didn’t have his wallet  _ or _ his phone because shockingly enough he hadn’t expected to go to Siberia and have someone he considered a close friend smash his fucking arc reactor, thereby rendering his suit unuseable.

Tony pushed himself to his feet, eyes lingering on the broken arc reactor before he looked up at Castiel.

“How did you get me here?” Tony asked suddenly.

“Flew, but to humans it’s more like…” he scrunched up his nose.

“Teleportation,”

“Well can you teleport me home?” Tony asked.

“In a few days, the trip to and from Russia depleted my grace,” Castiel told him.

“So your grace is like a battery?” Tony asked even though he still didn’t believe that the man was really an angel.

“That is one way of looking at it,” Castiel agreed.

“Alright. Can I look around? Try and find anything useful to fix my suit?”

Castiel nodded his head. Tony managed a small smile and started wandering around the bunker. He found a very strange storage room with a chair in the middle of some kind of demonic sigil. He did not take a step into that room. There could have been a fully functional arc reactor in the middle of the chair and Tony still would have left it alone.

It did, however, make Tony think that Castiel wasn’t quite joking about being an angel. 

He found a few useful things in the bunker, and by the time Castiel found him, Tony was reasonably confident that he could fix his suit. He needed to get back to Rhodes. 

“There’s leftover pizza in the fridge,”

Tony jumped at Castiel’s sudden appearance.

“If you’re hungry,”

“Alright,” Tony agreed.

Tony followed Castiel through the bunker and to the kitchen where Tony got himself a few pieces of pizza and a glass of water. Then Castiel herded him to a small living room where a laptop was on the coffee table, Netflix already queued up.

“Is this a Netflix and chill sort of situation?” Tony joked.

Castiel tilted his head to the side, brows furrowing.

“Yes?”

Tony almost choked on his water.

“Sam taught me how to use it,” Castiel informed him. There was a small frown on his face as he flicked through the titles. 

_ He’s fucking cute _ , Tony thought. 

“Who?” he asked suddenly, realizing he had never heard of a Sam before. 

“Sam Winchester. He and his brother Dean live here. They’re out on a hunt right now,” Castiel told him. 

“A hunt?” Tony asked, trying to think of the wildlife one would want to hunt in fucking Kansas- deer?

“There’s been demonic activity in Colorado,” Castiel told him. 

“Ah,”

And then. 

“Wait what?”

Castiel glanced at him, a tiny bemused smile pulling at his lips. 

“Demons,” he said. 

“Like… demons?”

“Yes, that’s what I said,”

Tony had been saved by an insane man. That was the only logical explanation. It didn’t, however, explain how the man had wings- but it explained everything else. No Angel of the lord would save the Merchant of Death. 

Tony needed to fix up his armor quick before the man sacrificed him to some kind of pagan god.

He slowly turned his attention back to the laptop, and all his worries quieted at the sight of a familiar movie. 

“Oh- put on that one,” Tony said, gesturing to the laptop.

“Jurassic Park?”

“It’s a classic,”

Castiel looked at him for a moment before he let the movie play. Cas, as it turned out, was generally quiet when he watched movies. Tony was far too used to the loudness of the Avengers- and he wasn’t going to think about them. He was going to enjoy an absolutely magnificent movie about dinosaurs and eat cold pizza.

“I don’t remember dinosaurs looking like that,” Castiel said softly as the camera panned up to reveal a Brachiosaurus.

_ What _ .

Tony waited for Cas to add on to that, but he didn’t say anything further on the subject. In fact, he didn’t say anything else until the movie was over.

“It’s getting late. You should go to bed, your body needs to rest in order to heal,” Castiel said as the credits started to play.

“Are you telling me it’s bedtime?” Tony asked, unable to keep the teasing note out of his voice.

“Yes. You’re still healing, you need to sleep,”

“Ok,” Tony scoffed.

“I can help you go to sleep,” Castiel offered.

“Is that a threat?”

Castiel cocked his head to the side.

“No,”

Tony really didn’t want to know what the fuck that meant.

“I’m just… gonna go to bed,” Tony said as he backed away from the winged man.

He returned to room 12 and shut the door firmly. 

Tony was disoriented when he woke up. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know what time it was, and he was immediately grumpy. 

Slowly the events of the previous day came back to him. He was in a fucking bunker in Lebanon, Kansas with a man who claimed he was an Angel. 

Right. 

He still didn’t know what time it was. With a sigh he heaved himself out of bed and crept out of the room. The bunker was as eerily as silent as it had been the day before. 

He made his way down the hallway and to the kitchen and found Castiel there. 

“Good morning. I made coffee,”

“What time is it?” Tony asked curiously as he started to make himself a mug of coffee. 

“8:23,”

Ugh. Too early in the morning for Tony to be awake. He took a sip of the scalding coffee and winced as he swallowed. It was too hot but that wasn’t going to deter him. 

“Will you be working on your suit again today?”

Tony nodded. 

“Can I watch?”

“You- what?” Tony asked. 

Castiel glanced away for a moment before his blue gaze settled on Tony once more.

“It’s… fascinating,” he said.

To hide his shock, Tony busied himself with making a second cup of coffee. 

“Sure,” he said at last. 

Castiel, as it turned out, liked learning new things, so the following day, when Tony was ready to work on his armor, he had Castiel as his shadow. Tony, for the most part, treated Castiel the same as he would treat Dum-E, talking to him about all sorts of nonsense and occasionally asking him to hand him some kind of tool.

“I believe it’s time for dinner,” Castiel said suddenly.

Tony blinked rapidly. 

“Is it? Leftover pizza again?”

“If you want,”

“Actually, how do you feel about pasta?”

“Well-”

“Good!”

Castiel followed him up to the kitchen where Tony poked around the surprisingly well equipped cabinets. He pulled out all the necessary ingredients and tools to make his mother’s favorite pasta dish. 

“You going to just stand there and watch, Angel?” Tony asked, glancing up at Castiel who was hovering awkwardly in the doorway. 

“Would you like help?” Castiel inquired, his brow furrowing in a frankly offensively charming way. 

Tony pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and gestured Castiel over with a nod of his head. 

“I’ll show you how to make pasta from scratch,” Tony said. 

“I don’t eat,” came the Angel’s much closer response. 

“Why not?” Tony asked, bewildered. 

“It’s unnecessary for Angels, and it all tastes like… molecules,” his nose scrunched up as he spoke for added effect. 

Tony shot him a bewildered look. 

“You can’t just turn it off?”

Castiel raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the question.

“To do that I would have to remove my Grace, which would make me human. Since I’ve already had my Grace forcibly taken from me before, I’m not interested in having it gone,” Castiel said. 

Tony paused the measuring of flour for half a second before he continued. 

“Forcibly removed?” Tony echoed, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

For a few moments Castiel didn’t respond, Tony got to work on starting a white wine sauce. 

“The Scribe of God, an angel named Metatron, ripped it from me and used it in a spell to banish all Angels from Heaven. He tricked me, told me he needed to gather the ingredients to lock all Angels inside Heaven, to keep them from wreaking further havoc on Earthuntil order was restored in Heaven. It wasn’t until the final ingredient when I realized how badly I had been betrayed,” Castiel said as if he wasn’t talking about a highly traumatizing event. 

“It took… too long for me to get my Grace back and return my brothers and sisters to Heaven,” he added.

Tony poured wine and cream into the saucepan.

“In three minutes dump that parmesan in the pan and whisk it till it melts,” he instructed.

Castiel nodded and took Tony’s place at the stove so he could start to work on the pasta. 

“Before I was- before Iron Man I was called the Merchant of Death. My company made weapons of destruction and sold them to the military. I went to Afghanistan to show off the spectacularly devastating Jericho missile. While I was there I was kidnapped by the Ten Rings where I got the arc reactor and where they tried to torture me into agreeing to build them the Jericho. I built Iron Man instead. The man who saved my life, Ho Yinsen, was killed while we were trying to escape. I set fire to the base and after a few hours I was rescued. I didn’t find out till much later that my godfather, a man I had trusted my whole life, was the one who put the hit on me,”

There was a moment of silence as Tony got the pasta crank ready. Castiel just placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Tony continued to make the pasta. 

“How do you know how to make this?” Castiel asked. 

“My mom taught me,”

He could feel the angel's bright gaze on him as he flattened the dough. 

“She must be very proud of you,”

A broken laugh bubbled out of him before he could stop it. He shook his head and continued to push the dough through the pasta crank. 

“I’ve hit a sore spot, my apologies,”

Tony exhaled shakily and turned to look at him for a moment.

“Is the water boiling?” he asked.

Castiel glanced from the saucepan to the pot.

“Yes,” he said.

Tony nodded and brought the plate of doughy noodles over to the pot and carefully dropped in a small batch. He stirred constantly to keep the noodles from sticking to each other. It only took a few minutes before he deemed them al dente and scooped them from the pot. He repeated the process three more times until all of the noodles were cooked perfectly. He dumped the freshly cooked pasta into the saucepan and stirred it up. He wasn’t surprised to find he made far more than what he could eat on his own. 

“That’s it?” Castiel asked.

“What do you mean  _ that’s it _ ?” Tony demanded.

“I thought it would be more complicated. You make it seem easy,”

Tony blinked.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.

He made himself a plateful of pasta and brought it to the small table in the kitchen and sat down with Cas sitting across from him.

Tony offered a forkful of pasta to Castiel. Cas stared at it for a moment before taking it. He looked vaguely suspicious as he ate the forkful and then his expression twisted.

“Molecules,” he said.

Tony looked down at his plate with a grin on his face.

“Worth a shot,” he said quietly.

“They were good molecules,” Cas said so seriously that Tony damn near melted.

To avoid saying anything embarrassing, Tony prattled on about some of the other things he used to make with his mother, and before he knew it he had finished his food. He set his plate and utensils in the sink before turning to the mass of pasta left in the sauce pan.

“This might not save well,” he said to himself.

“I can bring it to Sam and Dean?” Castiel offered.

Tony glanced at him.

“I thought your battery was low,”

Castiel sent him a reproachful glare.

“My  _ battery _ can handle a trip to and from Colorado,”

Tony held up his hands.

“Then go right ahead, Alita,”

Cas squinted at him.

“I don’t understand that reference,”

Tony snorted as he deposited the pasta into a large tupperware dish and set a lid delicately on top of it. He handed it to Castiel who vanished in a flurry of wings.

_ To humans it’s more like… teleportation _ .

Tony just shook his head and started to clean up the mess he had made. He was well into washing the dishes when a fluttering of wings let him know that Castiel had returned.

“And? What did they think?” Tony asked.

“Sam said it was the best pasta dish he’s ever had,”

“And Dean?”

“Said he’d rather have a burger,”

Tony barked out a laugh, he could relate to that sentiment.

“I had to convince them that I had taken a sudden interest in human cuisine,”

Tony arched an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

“They wouldn’t be very understanding if I told them a stranger staying in the bunker had made it,”

He huffed out a small laugh, blindly groping around in the soapy water for anything else he had to clean.

“Fuck,” Tony said quietly, yanking his hand out of the water.

“Tony?”

“Just a cut,” he said as he fumbled for a paper towel so he could stop the bleeding.

Before he could grab one, however, Castiel gently took hold of Tony’s hand, inspecting the damage with his almost offensively pretty eyes- offensively pretty eyes that glowed electric blue for a moment.

“What,”

Cas met his gaze for a moment before dropping his eyes back to the cut on Tony’s hand. Tony followed his gaze and- the cut was fucking gone.

“What,” he said again.

“I’m an angel, Tony, I heal people,”

_ Holy fucking shit _ , Tony thought helplessly.

Cas inspected his hand closely for a moment before slowly letting go. Tony missed the contact immediately.

“Are we watching Netflix again?”

“Sure,”

“I assume you’ll want to watch another ‘classic’?” Castiel asked.

Tony smiled softly.

“The classics are the best,”

Cas arched a devastating eyebrow.

“Are they?” he deadpanned.

Dramatically, Tony placed his hand over his heart in mock offense.

“I only have good taste in movies, Clarence,”

The small smile on Castiel’s face dropped instantly.

“Don’t- not that. Please. Anything else, just not that,” 

Tony nodded.

“Sure thing, feathers,”

Castiel’s lips quirked in a small smile.

“Thank you. What movie did you have in mind?”

Tony wracked his brain for the most ridiculous movie he could think of.

“Jurassic Games,” he said after a beat or two of silence.

“Is that like Jurassic Park?”

It took all of Tony’s willpower not to grin like an absolute madman.

“Yes,” he lied, like a liar who lies.

Castiel studied him for a moment before nodding.

“Will they be more historically accurate?”

“Probably not,”

Cas rolled his eyes as he turned and started walking out of the kitchen. Tony grinned to himself and followed Castiel to the small living room they had watched Jurassic Park in the night before.

Tony got the movie set up and sat back with a grin still on his face. He spent far more time watching Castiel’s reaction than the actual movie.

“This has nothing to do with the previous movie,” Castiel stated less than five minutes into the movie.

Tony snorted. Castiel seemed to take his amusement as blanket permission to criticize the movie non-stop. He covered everything from the acting, to the CGI, to the inaccuracy of the dinosaurs,  _ and _ to the big ass spider that was in a scene for absolutely no reason at all.

“That was the worst movie I’ve ever seen,” he said once the movie was finished.

“Tomorrow we’ll tackle VelociPastor,”

“I  _ sincerely  _ hope not,”

He looked so offended as he spoke, his blue eyes wide, and his dark hair an absolute mess and-

_ Oh _ .

“I should get some sleep,” Tony found himself saying.

Concern instantly washed over Castiel’s features.

“Of course, you need to rest,” he said.

“Goodnight, Tony,”

“Night, feathers,”

Tony looked at him once more before he turned and headed to room 12.

He woke up the following morning considerably less confused than he had the day before- except he still didn’t know what fucking time it was.

He forced himself out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen where Castiel was waiting for him with a fresh pot of coffee.

Tony could absolutely see himself falling in love with the angel. The thought was a little terrifying, and felt vaguely blasphemous.

“Are you going to work on your suit today?”

Tony blearily glanced up from his mug of coffee. 

“Not today,” he said. 

“Why not?”

“You’re really an Angel?” Tony asked instead of answering Castiel’s question.

“Yes,”

Tony stared at him for a moment before taking a long sip of coffee. 

“And there are demons?”

“Yes,” Cas said again, amusement quirking at his lips. 

“What else is there?” Tony asked hesitantly. 

He was almost afraid of the answer, but if superheroes and supervillains could exist, then why the hell couldn’t angels and demons?

“Everything,” Cas said simply, folding his hands on his lap. 

“Everything,” Tony repeated. 

The angel nodded. 

“Bullshit,”

“I’m sorry?”

“How do you know  _ everything _ exists?” Tony asked.

“Because I was alive when they were created,”

“Bullshit,” Tony said again.

That damned amused smile was back on Castiel’s lips.

“I’m an angel, Tony, I’ve been around since creation,” 

Tony didn’t want to say ‘bullshit’ for the third time in a row, but silently he was calling bullshit.

“So you’ve been alive since creation. Fine, whatever, I’m sure if I don’t think about it for too long it’ll make sense. But why- and how- are you here now?” Tony said.

The amused smile on his face only grew ast Tony rambled.

“I was given a mission a few years ago, to raise Dean Winchester from Hell, and to assist him on Earth while he and his brother tried to stop Lucifer from leaving the Cage. To do that, I needed a vessel,” Castiel told him.

Tony blinked once.

Then one more time.

And then once more.

“Ok,” he said.

“His name was Jimmy Novak, he gave his permission for me to inhabit his body and I assisted the Winchesters, we failed of course-”

“You what?” Tony asked.

“We failed, we didn’t keep Lucifer in the Cage,” Cas said like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

“So the Devil is just… walking around out there?”

“No. We put him back where he belongs,”

“You’re very nonchalant for someone who claims to have saved to world from fucking Satan,” 

“And you’re very nonchalant for someone who has also saved the world,” the angel countered. 

“That was a group effort-“

“Ah,” Cas said with a small smile. 

“I didn’t realize they were with you when you dealt with the nuke,”

Tony ducked his head, trying to ignore the way his chest tightened. He wasn’t entirely sure it was all panic this time.

“If you do not plan on working on the suit, then what do you have planned?” Cas asked gently.

Tony looked up at him.

“We are going to watch all the terrible movies we can in one day,”

Cas nodded like he had been given a mission of the highest caliber.

“Then I look forward to spending the day with you,”

_ Aw hell _ .

“Well let’s go then, feathers. I promised you VelociPastor, didn’t I?”

The look he received made his chest feel warm. Absentmindedly he rubbed his chest and followed the angel to the small living room. Tony made Cas watch every terrible movie he could think of and delighted in the absolute vitriol Cas spat at some of the movies. They only stopped when Tony’s eyes started to feel gritty with exhaustion.

“Goodnight, Tony,”

“Night, feathers,”

Tony woke up not knowing what fucking time it was for the fourth day in a row, he was starting to get used the mystery. As he did every morning, he got out of bed and headed for the kitchen to have some coffee and to see Castiel.

“More movies today?” Castiel asked, and Tony detected a bit of wariness in the angels voice which he took great pride in.

“I have to finish the suit,” Tony said.

“May I join you?”

“Please,”

Castiel grinned and followed him to the garage. Instead of Tony talking the day away, Castiel chose to fill the silence by sharing some of his favorite aspects of humanity. He spoke with such love and fondness that Tony once again found himself questioning how the fuck an angel saved the Merchant of Death.

“Hey, Cas?” Tony asked suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Why did you save me?” Tony asked, not taking his eyes off of his armor. 

“I heard your pleas for help. It’s not often I hear prayers anymore, so I went to find you. I healed you as best I could and brought you back here. I didn’t know where else to take you,” Castiel told him. 

“I can take you back home, wherever that is,” he offered, his voice soft.

“What about your battery?”

“My battery is fine,”

Tony thought about going back to the empty tower, or even worse the empty compound. There wasn’t anything there for him except Rhodes. He winced at the thought of his platypus. He had to go back for his friend, but Rhodey was supposed to be in the hospital for a few more days while the doctors worked out his situation.

Besides, going back home meant facing everything that had happened to him in Siberia, and he wasn’t ready for that. 

“It shouldn’t take me too much longer to get the suit working enough to get me to New York,” Tony said.

“New York,” Castiel repeated quietly.

“The A- there’s a compound upstate,”

He didn’t want to think about the Avengers- or what was left of them.

“Why were you in Siberia?”

Tony clicked his tongue. 

“Can you hold the light higher?” he asked. 

Castiel did as instructed. 

“Thank you,”

“Do you know what the Sokovia Accords are?” Tony asked. 

“No,”

Tony launched into the explanation of the Accords. He hated them, god he really did, but they were necessary. He told Castiel about Steve’s inability to compromise, and how he just wouldn’t listen to Tony at all even though Tony could fix the Accords and make them better. He told Castiel about the split in the Avengers, his tiny family, and the sheer shock of how many people had sided with Steve without even knowing about the Accords. He told Castiel about Natasha’s betrayal, Rhodey’s fall and partial paralysis, and the Raft, and then Siberia where he saw the Winter Soldier kill his parents- his  _ mom _ . 

“And he was right there. Staring at me the whole time and I tried so hard not to lose it but Steve knew. He knew for two years and he never told me… and I lashed out. And I went after Barnes and I know I shouldn’t have because he was brainwashed and he had no choice but to kill them but fuck!- that was my mom,”

Tony closed his eyes. 

“They got one over on me and Steve slammed his shield into my chest,”

He tapped the shattered arc reactor gently. He finally lifted his gaze to meet Castiel’s. 

“ _ Why did you save me _ ?” he asked again, desperate to understand how an Angel found him worthy of saving. 

Castiel held his gaze as his free hand cupped Tony’s face. 

“Because you deserve to be saved,” he said. 

“Cas-“

“You took every opportunity to extend the olive branch to this… Captain Rogers. Him not reaching out to take it says everything about him,”

Tony reached up to take Castiel’s hand, holding it against his face. 

“I just wanted to keep the team together,” he whispered. 

“If they could not see that then that’s on them,” Castiel’s thumb brushed Tony’s cheek before he pulled his hand away. 

“You radiate good,” he said. 

Tony scoffed. 

“I can see your soul, Tony. It’s beautiful,”

Tony never got the chance to respond to that as an Irish lilt floated from his armor. 

“ _ Boss _ ?”

Tony could have burst into tears at the sound of FRIDAY’s voice. He turned from Cas to his armor. 

“H-hey baby girl! Fuck it’s good to hear your voice,” he said, his voice shaking. 

“ _ What happened _ ?” she asked. 

“We’re in Kansas,” he told her. 

“Lebanon, Kansas,” Castiel said. 

“We’re safe. Can you get to my honey bear and tell him I’m ok?” he asked. 

“ _ Sure, boss _ ,”

Tony ran his fingers through his hair. 

“That’s FRIDAY. She’s an AI,” he said to Castiel. 

“AI?”

“Artificial Intelligence. She can think for herself, she has her own personality, she helps me do  _ everything _ ,” Tony said, feeling a rush of affection so strong it threatened to choke him. 

“And you created her?”

Tony nodded sharply. 

“That’s amazing,”

“She’s… yea,” Tony agreed.

“ _ Message delivered, boss _ ,” FRIDAY chimed.

“Thank you, baby girl. Can you run diagnostics? Are we patched up enough to head home?” he asked, circling the suit as he spoke. 

There was a moment of silence as FRIDAY went over his shoddy work on the suit. 

“ _ Yes, Boss _ ,” she said at last. 

“Route a flight plan from here to the Compound,”

“ _ Flight plan created _ ,”

A tight smile crossed his face. It was time to face the real world once again.

“Thank you baby girl,”

Tony started to gather up all the tools he had used to fix up his suit so he could put them where he had found them.

“Are you leaving?” Castiel asked.

“Yea. I- I have a lot of things to do,” Tony said.

“Tony, I- before you go, I-”

Tony looked back at him briefly before returning his attention to the tools.

“Your mother was Maria Stark?” Castiel asked quietly. 

Tony paused for a moment, his fingers hovering over the tools he had been using to fix up his suit. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything to the question so instead he nodded stiffly. 

“She’s very proud of you,”

Tony flinched wildly, and a wrench clattered to the floor.

“My mom is dead,” he said harshly.

“I know,”

“Then why-?”

“I’ve seen her heaven, and it’s full of you,” 

The statement punched the air out of Tony’s lungs. He turned to Castiel only to find the angel was holding the wrench that had fallen to the floor.

“I-what?” Tony croaked.

“You miss her, I could hear it in your voice when you spoke of her, so I thought I would visit her heaven, and it was always you,”

For a long moment his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted to know so much about her, how she was doing, what was she doing, was she happy there, did she see Howard or Jarvis-

Tony pressed the heel of his palms to his eyes.

_ Would Jarvis be proud of me _ ?

“I um… I should go,” he said, pulling his hands from his eyes.

“Tony, if I-”

“No… I should go. I…” Tony gestured uselessly, trying to find a good enough reason that wouldn’t make it seem like he was running away from the conversation and his emotions.

“You could stay,” Castiel suggested. 

“I can’t. I have to get back to Rhodes,” Tony said quietly.

“Let me take you,”

“You don’t have to,”

“I don’t mind,” Castiel insisted.

Tony took half a step back, desperate to keep space between them. He couldn’t ask Cas to do more than he already had. He had saved Tony’s life, gotten him out of Siberia and healed his wounds. It was far more kindness than he deserved. 

There was too much fucking blood on his hands and he could not-  _ would not _ soil the angel standing before him. 

“Don’t waste your grace on me,” Tony pleaded. 

“ _ Tony _ -“

“If you’re ever in New York, feel free to come find me,” Tony said softly.

Cas stared at him for a moment before he nodded. 

“Of course,”

Tony stepped into the armor and it closed around him. The HUD flickered to life, showing off FRIDAY’s flight plan and how long it would take him to get back to the Compound. 

Tony landed on the landing pad and instantly the suit was peeled away. He stood there for just a moment as FRIDAY whisked the pieces of the armor away to the lab where he could properly fix them up. He had so much fucking work to do. He had to fix the armor, he had to work on the fucking Accords, he had to check on Rhodes, he had to build Rhodey braces for his legs, he had to start trying to produce braces and prosthetics that were easily affordable and lightweight- fuck he probably should contact T’Challa about Barnes’ arm. 

He wished he could go back to the bunker in Kansas and listen to Cas talk about creation.

Tony scrubbed at his face for a moment before heading to the garage and sliding into one of his cars. He would check on Rhodes first, everything else he needed to do could wait. His platypus was the priority. 

When Tony arrived at Rhodey’s hospital room, his friend was awake in his bed, reading a book.

“Nerd,” Tony commented, leaning against the open door.

Rhodes snapped the book shut and looked up at him.

“Where the  _ hell _ have you been?” Rhodes demanded.

“How are you doing, honey pot?” Tony asked instead, he didn’t really want to get into the whole Angel of the Lord thing. 

“Tones you just vanished, for  _ days _ . You can’t fucking do that to me. Not after…” Rhodes trailed off, his voice thick. Tony heard the unsaid word.  _ Afghanistan _ .

“Russia. I followed them to Russia, where that Zemo guy showed me a video of the Winter Soldier killing my mom, and Rogers knew about it,” Tony said at last.

“I’ll kill him,” Rhodes said simply.

“Uh huh. Let’s get you some braces first, alright platypus?” Tony asked.

“Don’t worry about me right now, Tones, just come here,”

Tony nodded and shuffled toward the bed and let Rhodey pull him into his arms. Tony melted into his platypus.

“I’m so fucking sorry you had to see a video of that, Tones,” Rhodes whispered.

Tears flooded his eyes.

“She was my mom,” Tony whispered before bursting into tears. 

Rhodes held him while he cried.

The next few months blurred together for Tony. He started with Rhodey’s braces, and focused all his attention on getting them perfect for his platypus. Once Rhodey had no complaints about the braces, Tony got to work trying to find a way to make them easily accessible to the public.

He missed early morning coffee time with Castiel.

Then he had to talk with T’Challa about Sergeant Barnes’s arm, which thankfully had already been taken care of by the fucking brilliant Princess Shuri. Tony was secretly relieved by that. He wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with anything regarding the Sergeant at that moment.

He missed movie nights and listening to Cas talk shit.

Then he worked on his suit, deciding to forgo the clunky case he needed to use to carry it around and instead focused on nanotechnology. He even created a new arc reactor that sat on top of his chest instead of inside it. It was a thing of beauty. Personally, he thought it was something that Cas would like as well.

Fuck he missed Castiel.

Then there were the fucking Accords. Tony worked himself to the bone trying to right them, but with the whole Berlin mess, the UN fought him almost every step of the way.

He fucking hated the bureaucracy.

Tony woke up in his bedroom. The clock on his bedside table told him it was 7:58 in the morning.

“Terrible,” he grumbled.

He pushed himself out of bed and shuffled through the all too quiet compound to the kitchen. He drank his usual two mugs of coffee before getting ready for the rest of his day. He pulled on a faded band t-shirt and a torn pair of jeans before heading to the bathroom

“I deserve to be saved,” he said, staring at himself in the mirror.

It was a mantra he had started saying a few days after he had returned home. Even after all these months it was still hard for him to believe, but it had gotten easier somewhere along the way.

Castiel had worked so hard to get Tony to believe that he was worthy of being saved, and the last thing Tony wanted to do was disrespect the angel by convincing himself the opposite, so day after day he repeated the phrase to himself.

One day he hoped to fully believe it.

“What’s on the agenda today, FRI?” Tony asked.

“ _ I think you’re going to want to clear your schedule, Boss _ ,”

“What? Why?”

“ _ Someone just teleported onto the Compound grounds _ ,”

“Pull up footage,” Tony instructed.

A holographic screen popped up in front of him and Tony watched as Castiel appeared out of fuck all nowhere in the middle of the grounds.

“It’s ok, baby girl, he’s a friend,” Tony said.

Tony all but ran out of the Compound to reach his- the angel.

“Feathers! What brings you all the way out here?” Tony called.

Cas looked up at him and lit up like the fucking sun. 

“You said if I was in the area I could stop by,”

“So what god-forsaken monster brought you to upstate New York?” Tony asked, his hand hovering over the arc reactor on his chest.

“I…” the angel faltered for a moment.

“I wasn’t in the area, I just missed you,”

_ Oh _ .

“I hope it’s ok I’m here,”

“Of course it is. It’s my Compound, you’re always welcome,” Tony said. 

“Now c’mon, Angel, I’ve asked FRIDAY to compile a list of terrible movies,” Tony said as he nodded his head in the direction of the Compound.

Castiel took a step closer and reached out to take hold of Tony’s hand.

“I’d like that,”

“As you wish,” Tony said, squeezing Castiel’s hand gently.

“I don’t understand that reference,”

“I can fix that,” Tony said, another reference falling from him before he could stop it.

Castiel huffed out a laugh, his thumb brushing over Tony’s hand.

“Well then, as you wish,”

_ Fuck _ , Tony thought weakly.


End file.
